Judge: Jordan-Elbridge school district must release superintendent's severance deal

View full sizeMike Greenlar/The Post-StandardKris Humphreys, a parent of a senior at Jordan-Elbridge High School, was the first to speak at a parent meeting Sunday at the Elbridge Fire Department. She said she was troubled by the talk on the street she overheard about the district.

A judge has ordered the Jordan-Elbridge School District to release its severance agreement with its retiring superintendent, saying the superintendent’s desire to keep it secret is not a legitimate reason to withhold the document from the public.

The judge also criticized the district for letting the superintendent, Marilyn Dominick, reject the request for the document that was about herself. She had a conflict of interest, the judge wrote.

The judge also took the relatively unusual move to order the district to pay the legal expenses — $2,500 — of William Hamilton, the district’s assistant superintendent for business-finance who had sought the severance agreement.

The court action is the latest development in the controversy that has left two district administrators suspended with pay, a principal transferred involuntarily and the superintendent retiring with two years left on her contract. More than 200 parents and residents packed a fire hall Sunday night to question what’s going on.

Hamilton, suspended with pay in July by the district, had asked for a copy of the agreement under the state’s Freedom of Information law. Dominick, acting as the district’s record access officer, denied the request.

“I was hoping my private life would remain private,” she said when contacted on Monday. She declined further comment.

In a decision released Friday, State Supreme Court Judge Donald A. Greenwood wrote, “Dominick’s desire to keep the reason for her retirement and value of her severance package secret is not a sufficient basis under the Freedom of Information Law to deny the subject FOIL request.”

As of Monday afternoon, the district had not released the severance agreement. Lawyer Frank Miller, who is representing the district in the litigation, said the district is waiting to decide whether it will appeal the ruling.

School board President Mary Alley said the district does not plan to appeal the judge’s ruling.

But Miller said he hasn’t talked formally with the school board about whether to appeal or not.

“We’re looking at it, obviously,” Miller said. “It is what it is. It says pretty clearly what the judge’s view was: that the agreement has to be disclosed. And, if it’s not appealed, we will certainly comply with it in all respects, but I don’t think any decision has been made yet.”

Hamilton said he was pleased with the ruling, noting it’s rare for a judge to award attorney’s fees. Attorney Steve Ciotoli, whose law firm handled Hamilton’s FOI request, agreed.

“You don’t see that very often,” Ciotoli said. The lawyer said the judge was clear the severance agreement is a public record and should be released.

In awarding attorney’s fees, the judge found that the agreement was “clearly of significant interest to the general public and the district lacked a reasonable basis in law for withholding the record.”

Alley, the school board president, said Dominick herself decided not to release the agreement.

“Mrs. Dominick did not consult with the board as to whether that document needed to be handed over. She clearly made that decision on her own,” Alley said.

Alley, however, did submit an affidavit to the court supporting the district’s decision to withhold the severance agreement, Ciotoli said.

In his ruling, the judge came down solidly on the side of the public’s access to the information.

“FOIL is to be liberally construed and its exemptions narrowly interpreted so that the public is granted the maximum access to the records of government,” Greenwood wrote.

He noted that case law and advisory opinions from the state Department of State’s Committee on Open Government hold that a contract between an administrator and a school district must be disclosed.

Dominick had refused to release the agreement, claiming that it could potentially include personal information such as her home address, Social Security number and retirement and bank account numbers.

Greenwood reviewed the agreement.

The judge wrote that none of the personal information alleged to be in the agreement was in the document. He also found the agreement did not contain a confidentiality provision as the district had claimed.

Greenwood went on to note that the court would not be bound by any confidentiality clause anyway.

The shake-up in the Jordan-Elbridge involves four administrators and the district treasurer:

• High School Principal David Zehner, suspended with pay last Monday.

• Elbridge Elementary School Principal Janice Schue, transferred to a new job, special projects administrator. She fought her transfer last year, but lost.

• Hamilton, the assistant superintendent who brought the case to get the severance agreement, suspended with pay in July.

• Dominick, retiring Nov. 1, even though her contract runs until June 2012.